Thursday, 16 March 2017

Geert Wilders' PVV expected to finish as second largest party in the Netherland in yesterday's elections

Geert Wilders' PVV has come second in the Dutch general election held yesterday, leaving the incumbent VVD the largest party albeit with a big slump in the number of seats.

It will take time to finish counts and calculate seats won under proportional representation but it would appear that the VVD will come out with 31-33 seats (down from 41) whilst PVV will increase their 8 seats to 20. The PvdA (Labour) are expected to drop from 38 seats to 9.

There was much speculation prior to the election that the PVV could win the election as resentment toward uncontrolled immigration and the cost of propping up the EU and €uro have increase. And Wilders was expected to benefit from Rutte's government ignored last year's referendum result on Turkish visa free travel a couple of weeks ago and the Turkish government denounced the Netherlands and Dutch people over the last week or so.

But the Dutch are a funny lot. They are fantastic people but they are liberal to the point of destruction. Another Rutte government is a disaster for the Netherlands but that's democracy for you.

Rutte described the PVV as "the wrong type of populism". In the EU, populism has become a dirty word but it would be interesting to know how you can have the wrong type of doing what ordinary voters want which is what populism means.